Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 30 2020 In 2007, UNC researchers published unexpected and surprising results from a study based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of newborn brains. Twenty-six percent of the newborns in the study were found to have asymptomatic subdural hemorrhages, or bleeding in and around the brain. It was an unexpected finding
Children
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 30 2020 Five research projects with exceptional promise to deliver new life-changing and health-altering therapies have received the inaugural Blavatnik Therapeutics Challenge Awards (BTCA) at Harvard Medical School. The projects, which target a diverse range of conditions–type 1 diabetes, asthma, frontotemporal dementia, deadly cancer-associated blood clots, and a rare congenital
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 29 2020 The use of bariatric surgery to treat severe obesity in adolescents, and the racial disparities in access to that treatment, were analyzed in a retrospective study published in Annals of Surgery by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Nearly 19% of children
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 27 2020 Arizona-based Critical Path Institute (C-Path) is pleased to announce it has been awarded a multi-year grant by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to advance standards and methodologies designed to generate real-world evidence (RWE) from real-world data (RWD) through a neonatal pilot project through the International Neonatal
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 27 2020 Findings from a new study conducted by a team of researchers at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and published in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports, show that involving pediatric practices in the promotion of private well water testing can influence parental compliance. More than 43 million people living
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 22 2020 Jeffery Dusek, PhD, Director of Research at University Hospitals (UH) Connor Integrative Health Network and Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Case Western Reserve University, and colleagues were recently awarded a 3-year, $2+ million grant from the National Center of Complementary and
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 23 2020 The results of a new clinical trial, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that dexamethasone- a glucocorticoid used to treat many conditions, including rheumatic problems and severe COVID-19- can boost survival of premature babies when given to pregnant women at risk of preterm birth
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 22 2020 New questions are at the forefront as a study published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology from nine children’s hospitals finds that most asymptomatic children who tested positive for COVID-19 had relatively low levels of the virus compared to symptomatic children. The authors caution that the reason for
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 23 2020 With nearly half of the world’s population at risk for life-threatening malaria infections, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers and their colleagues identified an important public health measure to control the disease. Use of preventive antimalarial treatments reduces by half the number of malaria infections among
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 22 2020 Two studies examining the impact of COVID-19 on neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) found the prevalence of COVID-19 in NICU infants is low, yet many hospitals at the start of the pandemic put in place strict parental visitation policies and scaled back NICU services such as lactation support
Plastics have been a part of our lives since the creation of the first plastic bottle more than a hundred years ago. But, do you know that the tiny bits of plastic that make up the bibs, bottles, and packaging also shed tiny microscopic particles? Previous studies have shown that microplastics are present almost everywhere
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 19 2020 Like a cold front that moves in, setting the stage for severe weather, coronavirus infection triggers showers of infection-fighting immune molecules – showers that sometimes escalate into a chaotic immune response known as a cytokine storm. About 20 to 30 percent of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 develop severe
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 19 2020 Elevated birth weight is linked with developing atrial fibrillation later in life, according to research presented at the 31st Great Wall International Congress of Cardiology (GW-ICC). GW-ICC 2020 is a virtual meeting during 19 to 25 October. Faculty from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) will participate in
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 16 2020 A patient with end-stage and rapidly progressing soft-tissue cancer whose tumor did not respond to standard treatment, had a “rapid and complete response” to a novel combination of immunotherapy, according to new research published by a team of scientists from John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 16 2020 E-cigarettes might not be a safer alternative to smoking during pregnancy, according to the first known study into the effects of prenatal nicotine exposure on babies. Psychologists at Durham University, UK, found that babies of mothers who smoked e-cigarettes during pregnancy displayed similar abnormal reflexes to infants whose
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 15 2020 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has granted a 4D Nucleome award to support research by a group of scientists at Gladstone Institutes led by Benoit Bruneau, PhD, and Katie Pollard, PhD. This prestigious award will provide more than $3.6 million over 5 years to study how human
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 14 2020 New research by a University of Georgia scientist reveals that girls who are maltreated show higher levels of inflammation at an early age than boys who are maltreated or children who have not experienced abuse. This finding may forecast chronic mental and physical health problems in midlife. Led
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 14 2020 Fighting clever parasites requires smart vaccines that can trigger critical immune responses. A University of Chicago-based research team has found a novel way to do that. These experts, specialists in toxoplasmosis and leaders in vaccine design, have focused on one of the most frequent parasitic infections of humans.
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 12 2020 Nearly two million babies are stillborn every year, with 84 per cent of cases occurring in low- and lower middle-income countries, says an 8 October report by WHO, UNICEF and partners. The report says that a stillbirth occurs every 16 seconds. It defines stillbirth as “a baby born
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 9 2020 In a nationwide study, UCLA researchers have found that health inequities can be measured in children as young as 5 years old. The research, published in Health Affairs, contributes to a growing body of literature finding that children of color who are also poor face greater health inequities
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 9 2020 Rotavirus (RV) is an extremely contagious viral infection and the most common cause of diarrhea in infants and children worldwide. The World Health Organization reports that more than 215,000 children under the age of 5 die of a vaccine-preventable rotavirus infection each year. An RV vaccine, introduced in
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 9 2020 Researchers with the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UHCMC) have secured $4 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Cancer Institute (NCI) to establish an HIV-associated Malignancy Research Center (HAMRC) focused on lung cancer in East Africa.